


A broken sink

by KirstieJ



Series: TAZ Apartment AU [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Apartment AU, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, domestic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirstieJ/pseuds/KirstieJ
Summary: Two elves bicker over the broken sink in their bathroom, one caves to the  logic and threats of his sister and calls maintenance. Maintenance happens to be a pretty attractive ruff boi human. After fibbing about the situation, the elf who called offers the human some food.





	A broken sink

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, once again, like "weathering the storm" this is in an au where they're all mostly connected because they live in/work in the same apartment building. This actually takes place before that fic, because it's the first time Magnus ever meets The Twins. 
> 
> This can be interpreted pretty platonically, I suppose, though I ship taako and mags so it's kind of implied to be flirty? But read it however you wish!!

“Taako, you _need_ to call maintenance. We can’t live here without a properly functioning bathroom sink.”

“Why does it have to be _me_ that calls, huh?”

“Because, you were the last one to go in the bathroom, and you were also the one to attempt to fix it with magic, not me.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Bitch, I was there!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lup.”

“Taako… Just. Get. Maintenance. I have a performance tonight and I am not going to run to the kitchen sink if I need water while doing my makeup, if it takes longer than a few hours you’ll be on water duty for me, and that is final. Besides, it’s also a pain to have to come to the kitchen to wash our hands. This is outrageous.”

“Fffffine,” Taako groans, rolling his eyes. He gets up and goes to rummage through some papers, looking for the frequency number for their building maintenance worker. Lup breezes past him into the hall, going to her bedroom to make sure her outfit for the night is ready to go.

Taako manages to find the paper and uses his stone of far-speech, leaving a message with his name, apartment number, and a brief description of their problem. He waits around for about twenty minutes before he remembers seeing a recipe he was planning on trying in the stack of papers, so he goes back and grabs it, then walks the short distance from their living room to the kitchen to get started.

Roughly a half hour later, as Taako is stirring a medium sized pot of thick white sauce, there comes a knock on the door. Taako squeezes the spoon in his hand and it continues to stir slowly after he lets go. He walks over to the door, opening it up.

Outside of the door stands a ruggedly handsome guy, taller than Taako with broad, broad, shoulders and some pretty killer facial hair. “Heello,” Taako says with a little smile, leaning on the doorframe.

“You called maintenance?”

“Yes,” Taako says.

“Your sink is broken?”

“Sure is,” Taako says, glancing behind him into his apartment, although he can’t see the bathroom.

“Okay, well, uh, I’m here to fix it. My name is Magnus Burnsides, I’m the head of maintenance for this building.”

“Charmed,” Taako says, holding out an elegant hand, “I’m Taako.”

Magnus shakes his hand, more firm than Taako was planning on providing, and Taako moves out of the doorway right afterwards, “The bathroom is down the hall,” Taako tells him, then starts back for the kitchen to lower the heat on his sauce and take the spoon back.

“Okay, great, but, uh, first, I’m gonna need a more detailed explanation of the problem.”

Taako, with his back to the attractive handyman, rolls his eyes once more, “The sink is broken, my dude.”

“Yes, I recall. But, like, when did it break, and what was happening when it broke, have you tried anything since?”

“Ach,” Taako mutters, levitating a salt shaker to sprinkle a little bit into his palm before tossing a pinch of salt into the sauce he’s working on. “I dunno, I was trying to, like, wash my hands or something? Er, my face, actually. It broke last night, first it was all sputter-y and now only a tiny trickle or water will come out, if any at all.”

“So, it broke last night but you didn’t call maintenance until this afternoon? Did you try to do something to fix it beforehand?”

“Hmmmm, nope, can’t say I did.”

Magnus pinches the bridge of his nose, considering the elf in front of him still has his back turned. He doesn’t appreciate his job being made any more difficult than necessary, though with the delicious smell coming from the kitchen, Magnus can understand why Taako wouldn’t want to let anything burn. Still, it’s just a simple question and he needs a truthful answer. “Sir, it’s totally fine if you did. I can’t stress this enough, it’s not a problem, I just need to know.”

“Hey, maybe I’m just a busy person, and I didn’t have a chance to call you until this afternoon, that’s all,” Taako says, turning around to look at the unfamiliar human now that he’s turned the sauce down almost all the way to let it simmer.

“Okay. Are you _sure_ that neither you, nor the other resident in this unit, didn’t do anything else to it? I just need to check,” Magnus tries one more time. The guy can obviously use magic and sometimes when spells are cast and not properly undone they have some weird effects the next time someone messes around with the objects, it’s happened before. Magnus is relatively trusting, but one can never be sure with strangers who might think they’ve done something wrong.

He hears laughter coming from the hallway as a nearly-identical elf makes her way into the living room. Twins? Juuust great. “Hi, you must be the maintenance guy.”

“Hey. It’s Magnus,” he says, nodding towards her.

“Lup,” she says, smiling good-naturedly. “Don’t forget what I said, Taako.”

“Ugh,” Taako looks up towards the ceiling. “Okay, fine. Whatever. Yeah, I might have tried a fix-it spell or two but when they didn’t work I reversed them all properly. The sink is in the same stupid, broken state it was in last night, I _assure_ you.”

“Now, was that so hard?” Lup steals the words right out of Magnus’ mouth, though with a sweet-sarcastic tone he wasn’t going to use.

“Get fucked,” Taako grumbles, turning back to his cooking to check on the chicken in the oven as well as to work on the veggies for the side.

“That is all I needed to know,” Magnus declares. He could ask for specific spells and probably should, but truth be told he’s not one to understand much magic jargon, so he’s just gonna go in with caution and hope Taako is truthful about reversing his magic properly at least.

Once Magnus gets into the bathroom, he finds that the sink preforms like a normal, non-magicked appliance, and he finds the cause of the problem with relative ease. He takes about a half hour, with Lup stopping in to make sure he’s all good in the middle. Once finished, he tries the sink out a couple times to confirm it’s running properly, both hot and cold, and then packs up all his stuff and leaves the bathroom. The delicious smell he noticed earlier is much stronger than it was before, and perhaps even better than the first time? Magnus places a hand on his stomach for a second before he walks down the hall.

“Your sink is in working order,” Magnus announces.

“Thank you!” Lup says, brushing past him to go to the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

“Great, great,” Taako says, distractedly hovering around the kitchen with a plate in his hand.

“My god, that smells good,” Magnus can’t help but comment.

“You think?” Taako asks, turning towards Magnus with a perked brow.

“I mean, yeah,” Magnus says, “it smells, and looks, amazing.”

“Fair, but the taste is the most important aspect, don’t you think?” Taako asks, walking over to him. “Here,” he says, picking up the fork on the side of the plate and piercing a bit of sauce-covered meat, holding it out to the maintenance worker he just met.

“Uh,” Magnus says, but he’s not really one to pass up free food, so he leans forward and eats the piece of chicken off the stranger’s fork. As he chews, his eyes go wide. “Damn, that’s good,” Magnus says.

“You think?” Taako repeats, eagerness slipping into his voice. He stabs into a couple vegetables and holds them out as well, and Magnus easily bites them from the fork. He gives Taako a thumbs up, nodding, and Taako smiles at him for a moment before turning around. Taako grabs a container and transfers the food from the plate to the Tupperware, making sure it’s filled before putting the lid and turning and walking back to Magnus.

“Here.”

“Um, are you sure?” Magnus asks, tilting his head. It’s not often people offer him food on the job. Occasionally the older folks in the building offer him hard candies or cookies, which he adores, but he’s not sure anybody’s ever offered him a full meal, well, ever. And after he had to force Taako to confess to using magic on his sink? It’s just an odd situation.

“Uh, yeah, why not? You liked it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten,” Magnus says with sincerity, noticing the way Taako’s expression goes from vaguely annoyed to a small, sweet smile.

“Then, here,” Taako says, holding it out further

“Uh, okay,” Magnus says, taking the container from Taako. “Thanks.”

“I’ll come to the maintenance room tomorrow for my Tupperware back,” Taako says, lifting his chin slightly.

“Okay, sounds good,” Magnus says.

“Thanks for… doing your job,” Taako says.

“You’re welcome. Thanks for this food, seriously.”

“It’s nothing, I was experimenting with a new recipe. Gotta have someone to test it out on,” Taako says with a shrug.

“Okay,” Magnus says again, not bothering to mention the obvious fact that Taako has a sister he must be able to test food on. “I’ll see you around, Taako.”

“Catch ya later,” Taako says, turning back towards the kitchen. Magnus sees himself out and makes his way over to the elevator, stomach grumbling as he thinks of how pumped he is to eat this delicious free meal he just scored. He can cook okay, has a tendency to over-cook meat because he’s scared of it being raw. Julia was better in the kitchen then him, and his father-in-law was even better. They’d planned on getting him to show them the ropes later on, but never got a chance to.

Magnus shakes any thoughts of his late family and their cooking-related plans aside, glancing down at the food in his hands. He wasn’t lying when he told Taako it was one of the best things he’d ever eaten, hell, it’s a lot better than most of the things he’s paid for at restaurants. And he just received it for free from a strange yet incredibly beautiful tenant in the apartment building he both works for and lives in.

What an interesting, unexpected turn of events.

Once he gets to the bottom floor, Magnus makes his way over to the studio apartment in which he resides, and sits at his table, doing his best to savor the food rather than gobble it up in one bite like he wants to. It was a peculiar visit, but Magnus kind of hopes he does run into Taako again, and Lup. They seem like good people, if a little odd. If he can score any more amazing food out of it, Magnus will be set. Not to pray that anything of theirs breaks, of course, but that they might just run into each other by divine will or something like that.

At the very least, Taako told him he would be back for the Tupperware tomorrow. Magnus supposes he can try to hint at the idea of them hanging out, maybe? He has a day to think about it. It’s been a while since he’s done much of anything but work, so the idea is pretty tempting.

For today, the workday is pretty much over, all Magnus has to do is organize some files, and finish logs of what he did today. He does that, then settles into some whittling before bed.

The next day goes along like any other, Magnus taking calls and calling in the backup workers when necessary. He consults with Lucretia, an agent for the apartment company also living in the building, and goes about his normal tasks.

The minute Magnus sits down for his lunchbreak at 1:00, though, he gets a knock on the door. This isn’t entirely unfamiliar, even with a sign on the door of the workshop and on his own door. He sighs and stands up, having just sat down with a pre-made sandwich one of the backup brought over for him from a store.

Upon opening the door, his eyes land on an elegant elf wearing a cold-shoulder crop top and high waisted black jeans, hair pulled into a high ponytail, with a bag slung across his body.

“Oh, hey. Taako, right? I have your container right here, one second.” Magnus leaves the door wide open, going over to the counter to pick up the container he washed out. He grabs it and takes it over to where Taako is standing in the doorway.

“Thank you kindly,” Taako says, but he doesn’t take it right away. First, Taako reaches into his bag and takes out a nearly identical piece of Tupperware. He holds it out and Magnus takes it, looking down with his brows knit. Taako takes the empty container and puts it into the bag. “With this,” Taako says, gesturing to the new container, “I reused some of the sauce, so it has a lot of the same flavours, but added a couple new things and made it into a chicken sandwich with grilled bread. I used different flavors with the veggies, going for a contrast instead of similar taste like last night.”

“Um,” Magnus says, glancing back to his rather sad-looking wrapped sandwich sitting on his table. “I’m like, _sure_ , it’s fantastic.”

“Well, why don’t you try it and find out?” Taako asks, placing his now-free hands on his hips.

“Okay,” Magnus says, going inside again to retrieve a fork. He opens the container and goes for some of the veggies, first. Biting into them, he makes a little noise, because they’re wonderful. Definitely different tasting than last night, but no less amazing. He puts the fork down long enough to take a bite of the sandwich and nods, looking over to Taako to see his eyes practically glittering with anticipation for his reaction. It is similar to what he had last night, but, as Taako proclaimed, there are a few different flavours. A different cheese, Magnus thinks? And the veggies pair well, it’s a contrast, but it fits. Once he swallows, Magnus tells Taako as much.

“Great!” Taako says. “I’m glad you enjoy it. You can just bring that container back on your own time,” Taako says with the wave of his hand. “I have some stuff going on this weekend, but I’ll be around sometime. Now I know where you live, and you know where I do, so.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine,” Magnus says. “Thanks so much. Y’know, you don’t have to just give me your food, it’s really nice of you.”

“It’s fine, I like feeding people,” Taako says, waving his hand again. “And now you don’t have to eat that crap lying on your table. I mean, don’t get me wrong, disgusting convenience-store sandwiches can be great at times, especially in a pinch, but, like,” Taako shrugs.

“Uh, yeah, this is definitely way fucking better than that,” Magnus says with a chuckle. “You’re basically my hero now.” That gets another one of those sweet little smiles out of Taako, and Magnus smiles back. “So, uh, See you around?”

“Definitely, big guy,” Taako says. With that mysterious smile, he turns to leave, shutting Magnus’ door behind him. Magnus sits with his much better sandwich and side of actual greens, taking as much time as he can afford to savor the food once again. He now has faith he will be seeing Taako around, and even if he doesn’t, he might just have to seek Taako out again. Even if just for a slight chance at more of this amazing grub. With them living in the same building and all, hopefully it won’t be too hard. He’ll have to return the new container, sooner or later, and maybe this time he can plan to ask Taako to hang like he had thought about last night. For now, Magnus just enjoys the quality food, glad his day has basically been made by the kindness of a stranger who happens to be a great cook.

 


End file.
